“I’m trying to be the professor I needed”

Mark French, Professor, Mechanical Engineering Technology at Purdue University

A quick syllabus of the sections below:

About the Guitar Prof

The Guitar Prof’s Books and Articles

Tools & Materials Used

About the Guitar Prof

At school, the build process revolves around CNC routers and big power tools. It’s important that my students learn using the most modern equipment I can provide. At home, I work mostly by hand, though I have a small CNC router for when real precision is needed.

I taught guitar making workshops around the country for 11-years through the STEM Guitar Project. I did some summer workshops at Purdue and now teach MET 349 Stringed Instrument Design and Manufacture.

I have an odd background for a luthier. I was originally trained as an aerospace engineer. I worked as a civilian engineer for the United States Air Force for 10-years in what was then the Flight Dynamics Lab. Tiring of secure employment, I moved to the auto industry, where I was a senior engineer and a lab manager. I came to Purdue in 2004 and am now a professor in the School of Engineering Technology.

My only formal lutherie training is two short courses, an acoustic guitar class with Charles Fox (from American School of Lutherie) and a flamenco guitar class, taught by Paco Chorobo and hosted by Robbie O’Brien (of O’Brien Guitars).

I highly recommend both of them.

I have been making guitars for about 30-years. I’m unusual in that I didn’t start because I wanted to make fine guitar, but rather because I wanted to know how guitars worked. To learn, I’ve built a lot of different instruments, including electric guitars, acoustic guitars, lap dulcimers, ukuleles, a hammer dulcimer and probably some other things I’m forgetting.

It was rough going at first. I started in my garage, with a few tools and little idea of what I was doing. Progress was slow in those pre-internet days. There is no mistake I didn’t make, but I gradually got better. My aesthetic is well-made, clean and precise, but unornamented instruments.